101–110 of 153 posts
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Well, there is survivor bias there, of course; you don't see the ones that didn't learn to dodge...
But it makes you wonder why they cut it that close. What benefit they get from it. I can think of several plausible reasons but none that is self-evidently true.
Adrenaline is hell of a drug… and the best one.
I once wrote a personal’s ad in SQL on Craigslist, back when they had that section. A DBA replied and asked if I wanted hawking. She had a Cooper’s hawk. I met her at a commercial park in a Saturday morning. She was driving a Honda CRV, the hawk was in the front passenger seat, and I hopped into the back seat. She started driving and spotted some crows. The hawk saw them as well. Wearing a “don’t kill me either your…
I once wrote a personal’s ad in SQL on Craigslist, back when they had that section. A DBA replied and asked if I wanted hawking. I feel I have to reply, but I have no idea what to say.
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I see pigeons and sparrows dodge cars by inches, too. For that matter I do the same myself! Sparrows hawk insects out of the air, and I believe starlings also. Predicting motion would need to be second nature, I think. Like skillfully catching a ball, but much more so and between your teeth...
Well, there is survivor bias there, of course; you don't see the ones that didn't learn to dodge...
I have a similar story. I was taxiing a Cessna 152 at LHBS. It is a big grassy field. On that day there were a large flock of black birds sitting on the grass. I made the usual radio call to announce that I'm leaving the runway and taxiing to the tie-downs when the birds flitted away just between my airplane's nose and my destination. The birds outside of that "road" by roughly a wingspan distance remained on the gro…
I'm not an ornithologist but I think birds integrate some onboard magnetic compass sensors. So, it would be interesting if they can pick up the magnetic part of an electromagnetic wave of the radio. Seems very low likelihood but would be cool. Edit to add https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230828130356.h... . What frequency were you at? Seems they may actually be listening.
A bit of a shower thought, but I think you can probably generalize that idea: Most birds spend a significant part of their life in the air, looking down onto human-designed landscapes. The aerial view of our cities is probably as familiar to them as our neighborhood streets are to us.
But unlike Google Maps, they see the city moving - all the cars, pedestrians, trams, railways, etc. It seems likely to me that if this is what you see day-in, day-out, because it is literally the space you are living in, you will pick up some general patterns in what you see and might even start to experiment how those patterns can be exploited.
I have a similar story. I was taxiing a Cessna 152 at LHBS. It is a big grassy field. On that day there were a large flock of black birds sitting on the grass. I made the usual radio call to announce that I'm leaving the runway and taxiing to the tie-downs when the birds flitted away just between my airplane's nose and my destination. The birds outside of that "road" by roughly a wingspan distance remained on the gro…
I see pigeons and sparrows dodge cars by inches, too. For that matter I do the same myself! Sparrows hawk insects out of the air, and I believe starlings also. Predicting motion would need to be second nature, I think. Like skillfully catching a ball, but much more so and between your teeth...
I've watched karasu carefully wait for a yellow light to drop his walnut in an intersection. The last car passing cracked his nut, then he had time to gather the meat during the light change before other cars came along.
Some crows in Japan do something like that, dropping nuts on/near a pedestrian crossing, and waiting for a green pedestrian light. See https://youtu.be/BGPGknpq3e0?feature=shared
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London apparently has a high density of them (but high density still only means something like 40 breeding pairs), and some people are all excited about the prospect that they can do something about the rapidly rising wild parakeet population...
I'm having a hard time squaring away the image of grey gloomy London also being overrun with colourful tropical looking birds, I had to google it and see.
https://m.galaxybound.com/@vidar/114256153547342202
And a short walk from mine:
https://m.galaxybound.com/@vidar/114582595390607406
They're everywhere at this point.
I read somewhere that migrating birds often use human infrastructure - roads, railways, power lines, etc - as landmarks or even "route markers" for their migrations. A bit of a shower thought, but I think you can probably generalize that idea: Most birds spend a significant part of their life in the air, looking down onto human-designed landscapes. The aerial view of our cities is probably as familiar to them as our…
> Cooper’s hawk is on a rather short list of bird of prey species that have successfully adapted to life in cities. A city is a difficult and very dangerous habitat for any bird, but particularly for a large raptor specializing in live prey: you have to avoid windows, cars, utility wires, and countless other dangers while catching something to eat every day. Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more…
There's a couple of peregrine falcons with a live streaming webcam on top of Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile in Albi, south of France https://albi.fr/environnement/les-faucons-pelerins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albi_Cathedral